The Caged Bird's Song
by Anime-Angel-Ash
Summary: There's always a bird, there's always a cage-Songbird's life, in reverse.


"_These holes have shown me yet another wonder, though I've yet to see the application for it. They illuminate a merger of machine and man that is somehow the lesser, yet the greater, of both parties. The process seems to be irreversible. Perhaps, though, Comstock will have some need of this kind of thing to keep watch in that tower he is building._"

- Jeremiah Fink, A Child Needs a Protector; October the 4th, 1895

/

"_Ssh, ssh_," she says. The pressure splits his head open.

He twists and writhes, deep, so deep. His wings drift, too full, too far away to catch the sky. It presses, presses, so heavy—crushes him, all around.

He pushes his claws to the window, too thick, and he is too weak. The water cracks his audio intake—he shrieks, grips his head as warm oil leaks from behind his eyes. She watches him.

She says something. Presses her small hand against the glass. He reaches as far as he can, claws brushing. The only barrier he can't break.

She is small inside. But she is different. The tower is gone—but he sees inside her. She is _different_.

"It's all right," she says, he can somehow hear her say. "I'm here."

He feels his eyes change, and sees green reflecting off the glass. She watches him. She is different. Nothing will hurt her now.

The water bursts his eyes, and the ocean fills him up.

/

He is about to grab her, wrap her up tight in his fingers and rip her away—take her, _take her_ says the music, and not when and not where but _take_—when she sings for him, and he feels himself go slack.

"Sssh, ssh, it's okay. I'm here," she says as she approaches—comes to _him_, instead of running. She puts a warm hand on his face, reaches with tiny fingers to pull at the fold of his eye. "Will you help me?" she asks, tugging his face close until she is all he can see, so great and so small. "I need you to protect me, will you do it? Will you do this for me, just—just this one last thing?"

There is a feeling inside him more weightless than the air. He can't stop the excited fluttering of his wings, the swinging of his head, and in his chirping joy he presses his head close, feeling her hands brushing over his beak. She does not cry, or run, or hide—and as he takes to the air with a cry, her singing comes again, notes piercing through to him in the crash of the storm.

The sound turns him toward the ships, floating in the darkness of the clouds. He shreds the balloons, shatters the metal, sends them plummeting to the great, flaming abyss. He sees her magic, glittering pathways on the ship—sees the Shepherd with his weapon, with his whistle, in the path of bullets meant for her.

The Shepherd, with her on the burning ship, but Songbird feels no jolt of lightning shoot through him, no lust to feel the ribbon-ends of that throat on his claws. The song carries to him on the wind. He does not hate the Shepherd now, cannot think why he ever did.

Songbird sees the shattered tower, the angel's burnt husk sliding out of the storm. Lamb and Shepherd stand together on the bow, gazing up to the Heavens. The tune comes again, and now it is the Shepherd singing for him, high and strong.

Songbird finds it is with joy that he casts the angel down.

/

"_I'm sorry!_"

His claws stop close enough to graze the Shepherd's eyebrow, caked in grime and blood. With a curious click, Songbird turns to her.

"I'm sorry," she says, so small and guilty, like a child caught stealing sweets. He lifts his head and casts his gaze away, aloof. She has had the same look before, when she tried to crawl from the window of the angel, or break the lock. She will say _sorry_—"I never should've left," she tells him now, reaching for him like a babe, "I never should've left"—then try again.

Then she pulls at his finger, the little child, and hugs it close. "Take me back," she says. The ache inside him loosens. "Take me home."

With a small swivel he nuzzles at her back, the twisting anger in him gone. She chose him. She could have run, could have helped the Shepherd escape and fallen away into his shadow—but she is here, held safe in his hands. She chose _him_.

He does not take her to the angel. It is gone, and he has been told a new place, as he takes to the storm clouds and leaves the Shepherd to be forgotten. The tune plays, weaving with the crashes of the storm, and he takes her there.

As she screams, and the tools buzz, and the men speak in pinched voices and she begs and cries, the music plays, and tells him this is for the best.

/

In one world, he puts his claw through the Shepherd's eye, while she has her back turned. In another, the Shepherd disappears into the clouds and she reaches for him, a shriek in her mouth as Songbird blocks her. In another, Songbird drags him from a building window and flings him down to shatter the cobbles. Crushes him on the steps of Soldier's Field. Charges him in the tower, before they set foot in the world outside. Never lets him leave the place of welcome.

But he knows none of this. In this world, as the Shepherd crouches like a cockroach at the helm, Songbird puts his airship down.

/

He has failed. He let the Shepherd creep inside, like a spreading shadow among the pulsing machines, gears and wires. A dark thing, worming its way closer, extending to wrap her in its dark grip and drag her into the abyss.

Songbird bursts through the roof, shredding the metal and brick. Inside, the Shepherd cries out, and Songbird hears her voice alongside it, high and fearful. The light in his eyes blaze red.

He screams into the elevator shaft, bursting the door from its frame. Dark shapes hover in the falling dust—he presses at the opening, forcing it in. Between the falling bricks, bullets ricochet off his metal skin, and he can see the gun's sunburst in the dark. He slams, _slams_, sees barrel and boots by the light of his eyes, hears her screaming in a far-off place in his mind.

With a delicate _ding_ the elevator crashes down on his head. It drags him from the doorway—he shrieks with rage to the bottom of the shaft and erupts from the angel in plaster and brick and gold, shredding all in his way.

The Shepherd is a speck in the sky when Songbird finds him, shouting and falling from slackened lines with her wrapped in his darkness. Songbird doesn't notice the cold and murky water that soaks into his skin and wings—he only dives, reaching forward to slash the Shepherd's false heart.

His head throbs as he swings a hand forward to grasp the shadow, limp in the watery haze. But the ache is too much inside him. He shrieks as things break, dark oils spreading from tears in his skin. Hand shaking violently, he shoots it out—claws miss and fingers grasp cloth. He jerks the Shepherd close, sees his face unsheltered by the dark. Songbird knows it. He has seen this face before. He _hates this face._

Songbird's eye cracks. Pain and blindness break his grip. He writhes and shrieks as his body pulls him up, toward the sky again, and the Shepherd slinks back into the dark.

/

She taps her pencil on the desk irritably. She does not speak to him. Songbird clicks, tilts his head this way and that, shakes out his wings in the corner of the room.

Outside the windows, the sky bleeds a soft orange into the great, cottony white of the clouds, drifting down the walls of her room. She sighs. She hasn't turned the page.

He wonders if she is bored of that book. He unfurls, shaking the creases from his body as he steps up to the bookcase. His claws are clumsy with the thin bundles of paper and cloth, but he grips one between two tips and drags it out. Old, red cover dulling to rusty-brown. The portrait of a rabbit on it has frayed—he recognizes some of the letters, like the great gold _V_ and _R_, and those too are starting to fade. But it is her favorite. He remembers.

He brings it to her, sets it on her desk and pushes it close with the heel of his hand. She starts to look up, then turns her head down again as if she doesn't notice him. He tilts, clicks, chirps quietly, and returns to his corner roost.

She never turns to pick it up. Never does again.

/

Her small hands are barely large enough to grip it properly, fingers stretching to curl around the edges of the bright red cover. Her eyes light up like the sun, and she grins at him with a gap in her smile.

He deposits the rest of his load—paper, pens, cheese and breads, prepared things, even some sweets—in a clumsy pile on the table, and when he looks back she has the book open on the floor. It is half as big as she is, and she leans over it, tapping the pages and drawings with her small hands. "He was fat and bun—" she reads slowly, face screwing up as she stumbles over a new word, "bun—bun-chy, as a rab—rabb-it should be." She swings to look up at Songbird, pleased with herself by her expectant eyes. He looks at the book in a green light—he can't read any of it at all. But she smiles, and he chirps and nests beside her, bundling as much as he is able. She claps, giggling, and goes back to her story, reading steadily along.

"When a chi—chi-eld loves you for a long, long time," she reads, as the dark takes the outside and she reads by fire and the light from both of their eyes, "not just to play with, but re-a-lly loves you, then you be—be-come _real_ . . ."

/

So many voices. He hears excited jabbering like jaybirds, children running and tramping, half-interrupted music, singing, horns, shouting, laughter, the noise of shifting and swaying and stepping and dancing bodies. It irritates him. He restlessly swings his head.

The Father does not move. He stands silently and calmly, hands folded before him as their platform slowly ascends. Songbird shifts and flutters his wings. The golden man stands, affixed to the rising ground beside him. He is new. Songbird has never see him before.

There is more gold. Songbird clicks, tilting toward it briefly. The cranes and pullies and scaffolds are gone, and for the first time, he sees the angel complete. The music told him—tells him every day—that it is a good place. She will be safe there.

The platform slows as it nears the voices and sounds, and a great cheer rises with them as they appear before the crowd. Songbird trills, spreads his wings. The crowd gasps and slides back. As they dock, metal clasps clicking into place, the Father smiles.

"Do not be afraid, my children," he said, opening his arms. "The righteous have nothing to fear from the Songbird."

The crowd shifts forward again, a little. Songbird tilts. The Father speaks. "Welcome, my children, to this momentous occasion," he says, and an applause goes through the crowd like a shiver. "Today, we make monument to Columbia. She shall protect the Lamb from all that is false and impure in this holy place. One day, my mantle will be her own—but until that day comes, let her be watched over by righteous Columbia, and her servants."

The gold man plays a tune, high and shrill. Songbird knows it, the sound seeping into him and making him so light, his wings so strong. Without thought a great flap lifts him up, and he only hears the edges of the crowd's gasps as he zooms into the air. The angel rises slowly but grandly, little by little, and as the cheers swell below he rises up to meet that frozen face.

He will protect the Lamb that lives at these great heights. It is a feeling that lives deep inside, carries itself on music. As long as the Lamb needs protection and guidance, there will be the angel. And, as long as the angel should exist, there will be Songbird.

/

The first thing he hears is the clicking, the _tap-tap-tap_ of gears grinding into place. His eyes open like he has woken from a long sleep, dry and heavy. As he blinks, he realizes it is with metal eyelids_ click-clicking_ over glass, and the _tap-tap-tap_ is coming from inside his head.

He lashes out, writhing in leather skin and metal armor, and he is not sure how it feels—wrong? Is this his skin? He lets out a roar that sounds more like a squeal, high enough to shatter glass. Then voices rise up around him and he is in blackness again, lost in sleep.

When he wakes, he thinks it might be the first time—or the third, or the fifth. He does not hear the clicking anymore, and the feel of his own eyes and limbs is not strange. Somewhere near, he hears a tune, a soothing thing that calms and quiets him—or was he never fierce and loud? He is not sure.

He hears things between slumber and moments of fitful waking. Voices, familiar voices, fuzzy to his ears (or maybe that's the inside of his head). "Lord have mercy, what _do_ I pay you for?" says the loudest one, bobbing in and out, back and forth. "Do you really think our _illustrious proprietor_ is going to be happy to hear he'll be playin' a little jig for his show pony whenever he comes callin'?"

"It's a mere few notes," he hears from a quiet, unimportant voice as he floats away again. "Like a code. It should be no effort at all, Mister Fi . . ."

He drifts out, he drifts in. Men in long coats, peering at him and scribbling on boards in their arms. Whispering, pointing at him, never coming too close. One day, he sees the bars around him in a great circle, the roof over his head that will not let him spread his wings, the lock that faces away from him. He feels a pain in his chest and wants to fill his wings with sky, but it is sadness, not surprise. He feels as if he already knew he was caged.

One day, he opens his eyes to the lock clicking. The men in coats shuffle back as the door creaks open, and he eyes it curiously. Slowly, he steps toward it. He hears the shifting and clacking of metal with each step.

"There we go," he hears, and though it does not boom now, he knows it is the loud voice speaking. "Good, good."

He looks around the edges of his cage and sees the men everywhere, surrounding him. His eyes blink yellow (how does he know that, he wonders, then is sure he always has) as he looks back to the door, the gently swinging gate. There is someone before his cage, head covered with a dark cloth. He perches in the opening, wings stretching out their aches, and tilts his head.

The cloth is plucked from the figure's head. He doesn't see the holes where eyes should be, a pair the wrong shape and size looking back at him. He doesn't notice the hands, their skin darker than the pale face, or how tightly they are tied to the bundle. He doesn't hear muffled whimpers or quivering breaths, or see the shaking of those shoulders. He sees the face of the Shepherd. He feels his eyes glow red.

"And, go!" the loud one cries. Something metal clicks and clacks. Loops fall from his hands and feet, welts beneath barely feeling the cold. Something releases the Shepherd, too, and he starts to run, tripping over a long skirt. The tune plays. Songbird throws back his head, shrieking.

His wings swallow the air. He is not high enough, but there is space here for him to jolt across the room, flying frantically. The Shepherd clings to the bundle, and in Songbird's vision, he grows and grows, turns and turns, screams and screams.

Songbird tears the Shepherd apart. The voices cheer, shout and whoop. He beats and tears until the Shepherd doesn't scream anymore. He leaves what is left to stain the floor and turns, scooping up the bundle in his oversized fingers. There is nothing inside. The voices don't notice, or care, and when he lets out a shriek of distress the music gets louder and he feels himself sinking. He wants to bellow and fight and_ find her_, but drifts down instead, so quiet, so calm.

The music plays, and plays, and plays . . .

/

"You sons of bitches," he chokes out, spittle dripping from his lips and sweat from his chin. His arms and wrists have long gone numb. His dislocated shoulders throb. His chains _click-click-click_ as his toes graze the floor.

A jolt of electricity shoots down his spine. It scorches raw flesh from the inside, makes his body jerk, and the flash of searing pain in his shoulders makes him see white and roar with agony. It is over in an instant and he slumps, lungs heaving, pathetic sobs falling from his mouth.

"Servility treatment progress unsatisfactory," mutters the egghead, scribbling on a clipboard.

"I'll give you unsatisfactory," he hisses back weakly, as fierce as he can make it. He hears shuffling and clicking as the projectors are turned on. "Why are you doing this?" he says for the thousandth time, not even sure they're words anymore. For the thousandth time, he gets no answer. The film reels whir.

"What do you want?" he asks the floor. He hears footsteps approaching, glances to his left. The egghead has the headgear in one hand, and a goddamned cattle prod in the other. "What do you _want from me_?" he bellows, his voice echoing in the bear room, and he even jerks with the fury of it. He regrets it immediately, his shoulders shrieking, and even as the egghead shrinks back he feels another set of hands grab his head and hold him still.

He bucks with every ounce of strength he has left, like a bull with swords in its back, and the pain is sharp but hidden beneath the burning in his chest. The hands hold him tight and force the restrictive mask over his head. Animal wails fill his mouth like bile as they lock the restraint onto his shoulders. It props his chin in place, not letting him turn an inch. He tries to bite when they put the concoction in his eyes, makes them miss a couple times, but then it's in and they're gone and he can't move. The brightness of the screen hurts his eyes as it shakes a picture into being, black spots jumping across the expanse of white.

He doesn't want to see it—not again. He tries to close his eyes and the liquid burns. He can only keep them shut so long before they force themselves open, and through the blur of tears, he sees the pictures drifting, blinking.

A baby. An angel. A little girl with a big blue bow. Something flashes past—he can't see what it is. A woman and man, holding a baby up to the sky. A name: Elizabeth.

He tries to shake his head. "No. No . . ."

Another shock goes through him—it makes him arch, scream and swear.

The images move. A big, metal bird. A face. Fire—something jolting by. Screaming. Bleeding. A baby, torn in half. "Jesus Christ," he swears weakly, cannot drop his head. His eyes burn. "Stop it—please God, stop."

They don't. They never do. (They never will.) Words—feelings—come to his mind to match the pictures—love, the baby. Protect, the girl. A drawing of a woman, sketched with long hair and a half-smile, beautiful—Elizabeth. _Elizabeth_. He sees faces, more than one, and even when they're gone they're still in his head. Shepherd, Songbird. Shepherd. Songbird.

His eyes drift open, dry and aching. He doesn't know how much time has passed (he never does anymore). He can hear voices. His eyes close again as footsteps approach, and the door swings open with a squeal of hinges and a _bang_.

"—well underway, Mister Comstock."

"Father, Jeremiah."

"Right, of course, Father."

The footsteps draw closer, stop near his back. The voices float around him like haze. "We're still in the midst of phase one, as you can see."

"He seems lackluster."

"First steps, Father, I assure you. Gotta break 'em down to their parts before we can build 'em back up strong, you see."

The voices quiet, the footsteps echo. He fades in, out.

The hours stretch. He sleeps fitfully. They shock him awake. He screams, cusses them to hell ("You motherfuckers, let me out of here and I'll—"), but his voice grows weaker. They do it again, and again.

There is a moment—small, short—when he thinks _his mind is disappearing_. He laughs, or screams, or isn't sure which, but it is a terrifying sound he feels deep in his chest before a jolt smashes down his spine and everything goes dark.

They show him the pictures, over and over. They put him to sleep, and when he wakes up, his mind is foggy. Things are lost. But not the faces.

_Elizabeth, woman, baby, girl, protect. Shepherd, kill. Songbird. Shepherd, Songbird, Elizabeth. Songbird, Elizabeth, Songbird . . ._

A part of him realizes he is seeing his own face. It is a small part.

(The subject has taken to the identity-separation trials very well, they say, a fortunate mark of poor esteem. The true test will be servility, they say.)

/

He breathes in fibers, weakly coughs and spits them out. He tries to focus, twisting his wrists, hissing as the ropes rub them raw. He has to get it together, has to get out of here—could, damn it, if his mind wasn't so full of the murk they stuck him with, smothering his thoughts. He struggles and pulls, but it's like wallowing in mud, and he can barely tell where his own parts are supposed to bend. The chair beneath him creaks dangerously as he tries to twist, like it'll give out any second.

He hears voices, faintly, as if on the other side of a wall. "—men caught him wandering the compound. Got a might closer than we would have liked, but no harm done. The lil'en wasn't in danger for a minute."

"Forgive me if that does not ease my heart," says another, stone cold. "I expected more out of you and your men, Jeremiah, much more. A man who cannot keep my faith is unworthy of my sponsorship."

"Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves." The sound of metal scrapping and squealing reaches him, hinges whining. He can see light through the fibers. He stiffens, straining against his bonds. "Let's look at the silver lining, shall we? You remember the project you set my boys to, I trust."

Something grips to the top of his head, and there's barely time to plant his feet before the bag's ripped off. He grunts as the light jabs at his eyes, and through water he squints at the figures before him. But he doesn't need to. He knows who they are.

There's silence as his eyes narrow, picking up the blurry edges of their shapes. His head spins, and it feels like at any moment he'll topple. He barely shifts in his chair.

"Oh," says Comstock, slowly, steadily, a black smear in the light. "Yes. This one will do."

/

He presses himself against dainty wallpaper, puts a hand over his mouth, and tries to quiet his breathing. The light moves slowly, hovering in corners as the metal of the lantern shifts and creaks. He hears the pumping of his heart in his ears for a few frozen moments before the light recedes, slowly vanishing up the stairs. Sighing through his nose, he shuts his eyes to the dark, and when the house—as much as it could be called a _house_—is silent again, he stands and edges quietly down the hall.

This would've been a lot easier if they'd just given him a map. Dodging his way through security checkpoints at the front, ducking in and out of small, nondescript buildings (that just led him to more signs, more hints that he _wasn't there yet_) until the great structure at the center of the compound came into view, it had taken an age to figure this place out. Even this building hadn't looked like quite right—half a luxurious mansion, half steaming metal, like a factory had up-chucked on it. He ducks underneath paintings that he knows to be two-way mirrors, keeps quiet for the recorders he knows are picking up the silence. Cautiously, he edges toward the room he glimpsed at the back of the house.

He turns down a new hall and sees a light, seeping from beneath a door. Swallowing with a throat full of sand, he stands and cautiously moves close, pressing a hand to the wood.

The hinges creak like snapping tree trunks and he flinches, but goes still as soft light bleeds out the door to meet him. He sees a painting of Lady Comstock that he recognizes, a chest of drawers with a lamp on top, toys stacked at the foot of—he lets out a sigh he didn't know he was holding—a pristine white crib.

His feet carry him inside. He barely hears his gun hit the floor. His hands wrap around the side of the crib and he looks down into the swath of blankets.

She's there. Quiet, eyes closed, deep in sleep. As he watches she shifts and coos, a tiny thumb in her mouth as she rolls deeper into her linens. His eyes burn and vision blurs, and a strange, wet sound comes from deep inside him, tumbling from his mouth. He reaches in, fingers shaking and curling beneath the bundle of fabric, her small weight filling his hands. Filling him up.

If not for the sight of her, he would've seen the shadows.

A bag slams over his head. Blinds him, tightens around his neck. A shot of cold in his back burns and slices, cloth filling his mouth as he screams. She slides from his hands as others jerk him back.

He can hear her crying. The sound follows him into the dark.

/

"Heads—"

"Or tails?"

"Come on, move over," he says, trying to wave the two aside. One's wearing a sandwich board, the other carrying a plate like a diner girl, both looking stiff as stone. They're a regular sideshow act to match the place.

The fellow tosses him a coin, and he catches it without a thought.

"Heads?" says the man.

"Or tails?" says the woman.

They seem familiar, he thinks as he looks at the coin, but can't put a finger on it. Puffing out a breath, he flips the coin for the plate. "Tails," he says.

Heads, he sees when it click-clacks onto the decorated china. There's a half-smile on the man's face, and with a tightened lip the lady draws a chalk dash on his board. _Heads_ and _Tails_, it says, with only that fresh mark on it. First of the day, he guesses.

"Odd," says the man, the two wandering away as he passes them. "I had thought I would enjoy that more."

"With any luck," the woman says as her voice vanishes behind him, "you won't have another chance."

/

He blinks eyes crusted with sleep, his back aching where he's slumped on his desk all night. An ashtray, beer bottles. His calendar, still set on _1893 9 October._ He thinks it's been a few months. He's stopped tearing the days. Every day is October 9th, and every day he wishes it was the 8th.

There's a knock at his door. He ignores it, like all the others. He hears a voice on the other side, but barely, like he's at the bottom of a lake and some putz is trying to talk to him from the shore. It fades away after a while, and his eyes shut again, the back of his hand only aching now.

A _woosh_ fills the room, like a gale tearing a hole in his office, and light bursts through his eyelids. Bullets and screams echo inside his head and he flies back, hitting the edge of the desk. He finds the stormy sea, looking back at him from a ring of light in his wall.

"Wha—" he says weakly, blinking at the fog, the rocks, the pounding torrent. And a man, standing proper-like in the middle of it, wearing a bright yellow raincoat.

The yellow hat tilts up, and he recognizes the face under it in a instant. His blood surges, his teeth clench. Sure he's gone mad and not caring, he stands up and marches toward the impossible storm, fists tight to beat that son of bitch's face in—

The man shouts over the storm. "Now, no need for aggression. It seems for all our efforts, my sister and I did not calculate the weight of our actions properly—a simple misstep, I assure you. Now, if you would be so kind as to assist, we believe we can help you retrieve your daughter."

He falters at the edge of the light. His fists go slack, his eyes wide. He swallows down his heart.

"What do you say, Mister DeWitt?"

Booker pauses for a bare second. Then, without another thought, he steps forward into the wind and the rain.

/

_"It would appear that there is a corollary to this failure that we had not originally anticipated. Future trial subjects will, as a result, face an additional obstacle which might prove difficult in surmounting. Nonetheless, this early trial has provided us with invaluable data. We have determined that a young subject will be unsuitable, due to a lack of experience and greater potential for recklessness. It appears that acquisition of a more seasoned subject is in order._

_"Further, my brother has suggested that in future experiments, we do not provide details of the subject's mission following the transfusion. He believes the subject will be more stable and easily dispatched if allowed to personally fill in gaps in understanding. I believe additional trials are in order before such an attempt is made."_

- Rosalind Lutece, Notes on Trial One; July the 10th, 1894


End file.
